One of those key welterweight matchups takes place at Saturday’s Showtime-broadcast event in Las Vegas, as the undefeated Tyron Woodley (9-0 MMA, 7-0 SF) meets Canadian youngster Jordan Mein (23-7 MMA, 1-0 SF). Woodley has taken to calling himself the uncrowned champion at 170 pounds, and you won’t find too many MMA pundits willing to argue.

While Coker admitted Woodley would seem a logical choice should he down Mein, there was also no “win and you’re in” guarantee. Instead, the Strikeforce boss pointed to matchmaker Sean Shelby for guidance on who would contend for the belt vacated by Diaz.

“I know that in the next couple fights that we have, we’re going to have some top welterweights fighting, but that’s something that we’re going to sit down with Sean after this event and plan something out, just like we’re going to plan out the light heavyweight division and get our champion in that division.”

One Strikeforce division that does boast a champion is 185-pounds, and titleholder Luke Rockhold defends his belt against longtime veteran Keith Jardine in Saturday’s main event. Jardine took a slot that was originally intended for 32-year-old Tim Kennedy (12-3 MMA, 5-1 SF), who has dropped just one of his six career Strikeforce outings.

Kennedy was forced to withdraw from the planned matchup with an undisclosed training injury, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s waiting in the wings to challenge the winner, according to Coker.

“That hasn’t been determined yet,” Coker told MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com). “After this fight, let’s see how the fights go, and then we can reevaluate from there and then get back to you on the next fight.”

Strikeforce tour rolls on

In 2011, Strikeforce officials declared The Pearl at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas the permanent home of the promotion’s “Challengers Series” events. However, when Strikeforce and Showtime partnered for another year of events on the premium-cable channel, the prospects-driven series was immediately scrapped.

Strikeforce is kicking off its 2012 schedule in Sin City, but the company moved crosstown to The Joint at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.

Coker declined to speculate on the likelihood of a 2012 return to either venue but did say that the company would not be tied down to Las Vegas.

“It’s nice to be in Vegas,” Coker told MMAjunkie.com. “This is the home of Zuffa and the headquarters of the family. There are tremendous resources here. But this was an event where we felt the free preview weekend would be a great opportunity to have a showcase for our talent, and we made a decision to pull this fight off in a relatively quick manner.

“We felt this was a great opportunity, and luckily the Hard Rock opened up their doors, and here we are. We’re looking forward to putting on more events here in Las Vegas, but we’re also going to go on the road. We’re going to be a traveling show and going all over the country.”

The company is next expected to touch down in Columbus, Ohio, for a March 3 event.

UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey is probably the greatest female fighter on the planet, which is a tremendous feat. So why are we seemingly so obsessed with arguing about whether she could beat up men?